Page:Popular Mechanics 1928 01.pdf/45

 

you were walking along a piece of ocean beach, and something assailed your nostrils—a smell like all the musty, mouse-infested cellars of the world rolled into one overpowering odor—you'd probably do what most people would do under such a circumstance—flee. But the person who does that risks walking right away from the possibility of sudden and unexpected wealth—a mass of ambergris washed up by the sea. A small fragment of it is worth $1,000. Larger masses have brought $25,000 to $150,000.

While ambergris may be unknown to the majority of people, it is the base of perfume's pleasing fragrance, as well as the chemical element which makes the best perfumes expensive. How a substance that smells like nothing else on earth can be transformed into the odor of roses, violets, lilies of the valley, and other delicate fragrances of the most exquisite perfumes, is merely one of the tricks of the chemical trades, and it is done as effectively as the ancient alchemists of fairy tales turned base metals into gold.

Ambergris is a product of the sperm whale. If there is romance in the prospecting of mountains and deserts for gold and other valuable minerals, the searching of the seas for ambergris is infinitely more romantic. The "prospecting ground" for this substance is the whole seven seas, and every mile of the shore line of all the continents and islands. It is naturally most abundant in the waters inhabited by sperm whales, which usually prefer water that is colder than that chosen by other whales. Ambergris floats, and the occasional piece of it which becomes dislodged from the body of the whale may drift for thousands of miles by wind, tide and currents. Once ashore, it may remain on the beach to disintegrate, or to be picked up by the lucky finder who is able to recognize it.

The world's supply of ambergris has never been sufficient to lower the market value to a point to make the search for it less romantic than it is today. No satisfactory substitute for it having ever been found, the price is always high. For market purposes, the substance is divided into two classes, black and gray, which serve to indicate both color and quality. Gray ambergris often has brownish tinges, or may be mottled to a sort of pepper and salt color. Gray ambergris is the best quality, and is therefore most in demand. Only limited quantities of gray ambergris have been available during the past year, with the result that the latest New York quotation upon it is now $35 per ounce.

Drift ambergris, the kind that the sea